Latin America–United States relations

Latin America–United States relations are relations between the United States of America and the countries of Latin America. Historically speaking, bilateral relations between the United States and the various countries of Latin America have been multifaceted and complex, at times defined by strong regional cooperation and at others filled with economic and political tension and rivalry. Although relations between the U.S. government and most of Latin America were limited prior to the late 1800s, for most of the past century, the United States has unofficially regarded parts of Latin America as within its sphere of influence, and for much of the Cold War (1947–1991), actively vied with the Soviet Union for influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Today, the ties between the United States and most of Latin America (with the exception of certain countries such as Cuba and Venezuela) are generally cordial, but there remain areas of tension between the two sides. Latin America is the largest foreign supplier of oil to the United States and its fastest-growing trading partner, as well as the largest source of drugs and U.S. immigrants, both documented and otherwise, all of which underline the continually evolving relationship between the two.[1]

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Until the end of the 19th century, the United States had a special relationship primarily with nearby Mexico and Cuba. (apart from Mexico and the Spanish colony of Cuba) was largely tied to Britain. The United States had no involvement in the process by which Spanish possessions broke away and became independent around 1820. In cooperation with, and help from, Britain, the United States issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning against the establishment of any additional European colonies in Latin America.

The Anglo-Venezuelan boundary dispute of Guayana Esequiba in 1895 asserted for the first time a more outward-looking American foreign policy, particularly in the Americas, marking the United States as a world power. This was the earliest example of modern interventionism under the Monroe Doctrine, in which the U.S. exercised its claimed prerogatives in the Americas. By the late nineteenth century the rapid economic growth of the United States increasingly troubled Latin America. A Pan-American Union was created under American aegis, but it had little impact as did its successor the Organization of American States.

American cartoon, published in 1898: "Remember the Maine! And Don't Forget the Starving Cubans!"

As unrest in Cuba escalated in the 1890s, the United States demanded reforms that Spain was unable to accomplish. The result was the short Spanish–American War of 1898, in which United States acquired Puerto Rico and set up a protectorate over Cuba under the Platt Amendment rule passed as part of the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill. The building of the Panama Canal absorbed American attention from 1903. The US facilitated a revolt that made Panama independent from Colombia and set up the Panama Canal Zone as an American owned and operated district that was finally returned to Panama in 1979. The Canal opened in 1914 and proved a major factor in world trade. The United States paid special attention to protection of the military approaches to the Panama Canal, including threats by Germany. Repeatedly it seized temporary control of the finances of several countries, especially Haiti and Nicaragua.

The Mexican Revolution started in 1911; it alarmed American business interests that had invested in Mexican mines and railways. The United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution, include, among other violations of sovereignty, the ambassadorial backing of a coup and assassination of President Francisco I. Madero and the military occupation of Veracruz. Large numbers of Mexicans fled the war-torn revolution into the southwestern United States. Meanwhile, the United States increasingly replaced Britain as the major trade partner and financier throughout Latin America. The US adopted a "Good Neighbor Policy" in the 1930s, which meant friendly trade relations would continue regardless of political conditions or dictatorships. United States signed up the major countries as allies against Germany and Japan in World War II. However, some countries like Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela only joined the Allied side in 1945. The era of the Good Neighbor Policy ended with the ramp-up of the Cold War in 1945, as the United States felt there was a greater need to protect the western hemisphere from Soviet Union influence and a potential rise of communism. These changes conflicted with the Good Neighbor Policy's fundamental principle of non-intervention and led to a new wave of US involvement in Latin American affairs.

As of late, several left-wing parties have gained power through elections, and Venezuela under the late Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro has been particularly critical of U.S. foreign policy; Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador currently have governments sometimes seen as aligned with Venezuela, while Cuba and the U.S. continue to have non-existent relations. Left-wing governments in nations such as Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay during this period were considerably more centrist and neutral.

The centre-right governments in Argentina, Mexico, Panama, Chile, and Colombia have closer relations with the U.S., with Mexico being the U.S's largest economic partner in Latin America and its third largest overall trade partner after Canada and China. Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed with Canada and Mexico in 1994, the United States enjoys virtual duty-free trade with Mexico. Since 1994, the United States has signed other notable free-trade agreements with Chile in 2004, Peru in 2007, and most recently Colombia and Panama in 2011. By 2015, relations were tense between United States and Venezuela.

Large-scale immigration from Latin America to the United States grew since the late twentieth century. Today approximately 18% of the U.S. population is Hispanic and Latino Americans, totaling more than 50 million people, mostly of Mexican and Central American background. Furthermore, over 10 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, most of them with Hispanic origins. Many send money back home to family members and contribute considerably to the domestic economies of their countries of origin. Large-scale immigration to the United States came primarily from Mexico and Cuba. Smaller, though still significant, immigrant populations from El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Colombia exist in the United States.

In addition, Argentina is a major non-NATO ally of the United States, the result of a policy of reapproachment and market liberalization led by President Carlos Menem during the 1990s which saw the country send troops as part of the coalition in the Gulf War and become one of the world's largest contributors to UN peacekeeping operations. After a period of worsening relations during the late 2000s administration of Cristina Kirchner, the election of centre-right President Mauricio Macri has resulted in renewed interest in both countries to continue improving trade and bilateral relations.[4]

In 1811, the arrival of Joel Roberts Poinsett in Santiago de Chile marked the beginning of U.S. involvement in Chilean politics. He had been sent by President James Madison in 1809 as a special agent to the South American Spanish colonies to investigate the prospects of the revolutionaries in their struggle for independence from Spain.

The 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which began the United States' policy of isolationism, deemed it necessary for the United States to refrain from entering into European affairs, but to protect nations in the Western hemisphere from foreign military intervention. The United States issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning against the establishment of any additional European colonies in Latin America.

Despite this, European interventions continued to occur in American countries with the tacit or explicit support of the United States. These interventions include the occupation of the Falkland Islands by Britain in 1833, the French naval blockade of Argentine ports between 1839 and 1840, the Anglo-French blockade of the River Plate from 1845 to 1850, the Spanish invasion of the Dominican Republic between 1861 and 1865, the French intervention in Mexico between 1862 and 1865, the British occupation of the Mosquito coast in Nicaragua and the occupation of the Guayana Essequiba in Venezuela by Great Britain in 1855.

The Anderson–Gual Treaty (formally, the General Convention of Peace, Amity, Navigation, and Commerce) was an 1824 treaty between the United States and Gran Colombia (now the modern day countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador). It was the first bilateral treaty concluded by the United States with another American country.

The commercial provisions of the treaty granted reciprocal most-favored-nation status and were maintained despite the dissolution of Gran Colombia in 1830. The treaty contained a clause that stated it would be in force for 12 years after ratification by both parties; the treaty therefore expired in 1837.

The notion of an international union in the New World was first put forward by the Venezuelan Liberator Simón Bolívar[5] who, at the 1826 Congress of Panama (still being part of Gran Colombia), proposed a league of all American republics with a common military, a mutual defense pact and a supranational parliamentary assembly. Bolívar's dream of Latin American unity was meant to unify Hispanic American nations against external powers, including the United States. The meeting was attended by representatives of Gran Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, the United Provinces of Central America, and Mexico but the grandly titled "Treaty of Union, League, and Perpetual Confederation" was ultimately ratified only by Gran Colombia. The United States' delegates to the Congress were delayed by internal politics in the United States. Though delegates were eventually dispatched by President John Quincy Adams, one (Richard Clough Anderson Jr.) died en route to Panama, and the other (John Sergeant) arrived after the Congress had concluded. Thus Great Britain, which attended with only observer status, managed to negotiate many trade deals with Latin American countries. Bolívar's dream soon foundered, with civil war in Gran Colombia, the disintegration of Central America and the emergence of national, rather than New World, outlooks in the newly independent American republics.

Texas, settled primarily by Anglo-Americans, fought a successful war of independence against Mexico in 1836. Mexico refused to recognize the independence and warned that annexation to the United States meant war. US Annexation of Texas occurred in 1845; predictably, war followed annexation in 1846. The American military was triumphant. The result was the American purchase of New Mexico, Arizona, California and adjacent areas. About 60,000 Mexicans remained in the new territories and became US citizens. In 1862, French forces under Napoleon III invaded and conquered Mexico, giving control to the puppet monarch Emperor Maximilian I. Washington denounced this as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, but was unable to intervene because of the American Civil War. In 1865, the United States stationed a large combat army on the border to emphasize its demand that France leave. France did pull out and Mexican nationalists executed Maximilian.[6]

The Ostend Manifesto of 1854 was a proposal circulated by American diplomats that proposed the United States offer to purchase Cuba from Spain, while implying that the U.S. should declare war if Spain refused. Nothing came of it. Diplomatically, the US was content to see the island remain in Spanish hands so long as it did not pass to a stronger power such as Britain or France.

The United States tried to bring an early end to the War of the Pacific in 1879, mainly because of US business interests in Peru, but also because its leaders worried that the United Kingdom would take economic control of the region through Chile.[7]
Peace negotiations failed when a stipulation required Chile to return the conquered lands. Chileans suspected the new US initiative was tainted with a pro-Peruvian bias. As a result, relations between Chile and the United States took a turn for the worse.[8]
Chile instead asked that the United States remain neutral and the United States, unable to match Chilean naval power, backed down.[9]

President Cleveland twists the tail of the British Lion, cartoon in Puck by J.S. Pughe, 1895

Map showing:* The extreme border claimed by Britain* The current boundary (roughly) and* The extreme border claimed by Venezuela

The Venezuelan crisis of 1895[a] occurred over Venezuela's longstanding dispute with the United Kingdom about the territory of Essequibo and Guayana Esequiba, which Britain claimed as part of British Guiana and Venezuela saw as Venezuelan territory. As the dispute became a crisis, the key issue became Britain's refusal to include the territory east of the "Schomburgk Line", in the proposed international arbitration, which a surveyor had drawn half a century earlier as a boundary between Venezuela and the former Dutch territory of British Guiana.[10] By December 17, 1895, President Grover Cleveland delivered an address to the United States Congress reaffirming the Monroe Doctrine and its relevance to the dispute. The crisis ultimately saw the Britain Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, accept the United States' intervention to force arbitration of the entire disputed territory and tacitly accept the United States' right to intervene under the Monroe Doctrine. A tribunal convened in Paris in 1898 to decide the matter, and in 1899, awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana.[11] For the first time, the Anglo-Venezuelan boundary dispute asserted a more outward-looking American foreign policy, particularly in the Americas, marking the United States as a world power. This was the earliest example of modern interventionism under the Monroe Doctrine, in which the U.S. exercised its claimed prerogatives in the Americas.[12]

Revolts against Spanish rule had been occurring for some years in Cuba as is demonstrated by the Virginius Affair in 1873. In the late 1890s, journalists Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst which used yellow journalism, anti-Spanish propaganda, to agitate U.S. public opinion and encourage war. However, the Hearst and Pulitzer papers circulated among the working class in New York City and did not reach a national audience.[14][15]

After the mysterious sinking of the US Navy battleship Maine in Havana harbor, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war he had wished to avoid.[16] Spain promised time and again that it would reform, but never delivered. The United States sent an ultimatum to Spain demanding it surrender control of Cuba. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war.[17]

Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. US naval power proved decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already facing nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further wasted by yellow fever.[18] Numerically superior Cuban, Philippine and US forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units and fierce fighting for positions such as San Juan Hill.[19] With two obsolete Spanish squadrons sunk in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay and a third, more modern fleet recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts, Madrid sued for peace.[20]

The result was the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the U.S., which allowed temporary U.S. control of Cuba and ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine islands. The cession of the Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($602,320,000 today) to Spain by the US to cover infrastructure owned by Spain.[21]

The war began exactly fifty-two years after the beginning of the Mexican–American War. It was one of only five out of twelve US wars (against a total of eleven sovereign states) to have been formally declared by Congress.[22]

The Venezuelan crisis of 1902–03 was a naval blockade imposed against Venezuela by Britain, Germany and Italy and lasted from December 1902 to February 1903. The blockade was a result of President Cipriano Castro's refusal to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in the recent Venezuelan Civil War. Castro assumed that the United States' Monroe Doctrine would see the US prevent European military intervention, but at the time, President Roosevelt interpreted the Doctrine to concern European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se. With prior promises that no such seizure would occur, the US allowed the action to go ahead without objection. The blockade quickly disabled Venezuela's small navy, but Castro refused to give in. Instead, he agreed in principle to submit some of the claims to international arbitration, which he had previously rejected. Germany initially objected to this, particularly because it felt some claims should be accepted by Venezuela without arbitration.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt forced the blockading nations to back down by sending his own larger fleet under Admiral George Dewey and threatening war if the Germans landed.[24] With Castro failing to back down, increased U.S. and British pressure, and American press reaction to the affair, the blockading nations agreed to a compromise. However, the blockade remained during negotiations over the details of the compromise. The Washington Protocols agreement was signed on February 13, 1903. The agreement lifted the blockade and obligated Venezuela commit 30% of its customs duties to settling claims. When the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague subsequently awarded preferential treatment to the blockading powers against the claims of other nations, the U.S. feared this would encourage future European intervention. This incident was a major driver of the Roosevelt Corollary and the subsequent U.S. Big Stick policy and Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America.

On March 2, 1901, the Platt Amendment was passed as part of the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill.[25] It stipulated seven conditions for the withdrawal of United States troops remaining in Cuba at the end of the Spanish–American War and an eighth condition that Cuba sign a treaty accepting these seven conditions. The amendment defined the terms of Cuban and U.S. relations to essentially be an unequal, with U.S. dominance over Cuba. On December 25, 1901, Cuba amended its constitution to contain the text of the Platt Amendment.[26] On May 22, 1903, Cuba entered into a treaty with the United States to allow the United States to intervene unilaterally in Cuban affairs and a pledge to lease land to the United States for naval bases on the island as Guantanamo.

Theodore Roosevelt, who became President of the United States in 1901, believed that a U.S.-controlled canal across Central America was a vital strategic interest to the United States. This idea gained wide impetus following the destruction of the battleship USS Maine in Cuba on February 15, 1898.[27] The USS Oregon, a battleship stationed in San Francisco, was dispatched to take her place, but the voyage—around Cape Horn—took 67 days. Although she was in time to join in the Battle of Santiago Bay, the voyage would have taken just three weeks via Panama. A voyage through a canal in Panama or Nicaragua would have reduced travel time by 60–65% and shortened the travel to 20–25 days.[27]

Roosevelt was able to reverse a previous decision by the Walker Commission in favour of a Nicaragua Canal and pushed through the acquisition of the French Panama Canal effort. Panama was then part of Colombia, so Roosevelt opened negotiations with the Colombians to obtain the necessary permission. In early 1903, the Hay–Herrán Treaty was signed by both nations, but the Colombian Senate failed to ratify the treaty.

Controversially, Roosevelt implied to Panamanian rebels that if they revolted, the U.S. Navy would assist their cause for independence. Panama proceeded to proclaim its independence on November 3, 1903 and the USS Nashville in local waters impeded any interference from Colombia.

The victorious Panamanians returned the favor to Roosevelt by allowing the United States control of the Panama Canal Zone on February 23, 1904, for US$10,000,000 (as provided in the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, signed on November 18, 1903).

When the Venezuelan government under Cipriano Castro was no longer able to placate the demands of European bankers in 1902, naval forces from Britain, Italy, and Germany erected a blockade along the Venezuelan coast and even fired upon coastal fortifications. The U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt's concern with the threat of penetration into the region by Germany and the increasingly negative British and American press reactions to the affair led to the blockading nations agreement to a compromise. The blockade was maintained during negotiations over the details of refinacial the debt on Washington Protocols.

The U.S. president then formulated the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, in December 1904, which asserted the right of the United States to intervene in Latin American nations' affairs.[29] In its altered state, the Monroe Doctrine would now consider Latin America as an agency for expanding U.S. commercial interests in the region, along with its original stated purpose of keeping European hegemony from the hemisphere. In addition, the corollary proclaimed the explicit right of the United States to intervene in Latin American conflicts exercising an international police power.

Roosevelt first used the Corollary to act in the Dominican Republic in 1904, which at the time was severely indebted and becoming a failed state.

From 1909 to 1913, President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State Philander C. Knox followed a foreign policy characterized as "dollar diplomacy." Taft shared the view held by Knox (a corporate lawyer who had founded the giant conglomerate U.S. Steel) that the goal of diplomacy should be to create stability abroad and, through this stability, promote American commercial interests. Knox felt that not only was the goal of diplomacy to improve financial opportunities, but also to use private capital to further U.S. interests overseas. "Dollar diplomacy" was evident in extensive U.S. interventions in Cuba, Central America and Venezuela, especially in measures undertaken by the United States government to safeguard American financial interests in the region. During the presidency of Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuela provided a very favorable atmosphere for U.S. activities at that time petroleum was discovered under Lake Maracaibo basin in 1914. Gómez managed to deflate Venezuela's staggering debt by granting concessions to foreign oil companies, which won him the support of the United States and the European powers. The growth of the domestic oil industry strengthened the economic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela.[30] In spite of successes, "dollar diplomacy" failed to counteract economic instability and the tide of revolution in places like Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and China.

The United States appears to have pursued an inconsistent policy toward Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, but in fact it was the pattern for U.S. diplomacy. "Every victorious faction between 1910 and 1919 enjoyed the sympathy, and in most cases the direct support of U.S. authorities in its struggle for power. In each case, the administration in Washington soon turned on its new friends with the same vehemence it had initially expressed in supporting them."[31] The U.S. turned against the regimes it helped install when they began pursuing policies counter to U.S. diplomatic and business interests.[32]

The U.S. sent troops to the border with Mexico when it became clear in March 1911 that the regime of Porfirio Díaz could not control revolutionary violence.[33] Díaz resigned, opening the way for free elections that brought Francisco I. Madero to the presidency in November 1911. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, conspired with opposition forces to topple Madero's regime in February 1913, during what is known as the Ten Tragic Days.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the US carried on several military interventions under principles of Big Stick policy in what became known as the Banana Wars. The term arose from the connections between the interventions and the preservation of US commercial interests. An example is the United Fruit corporation, which had significant financial stakes in production of bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and various other agricultural products throughout the Caribbean, Central America and the northern portions of South America.
US citizens advocating imperialism in the pre–World War I era often argued that these conflicts helped central and South Americans by aiding in stability. Some imperialists argued that these limited interventions did not serve US interests sufficiently and argued for expanded actions in the region. Anti-imperialists argued that these actions were a first step down a slippery slope towards US colonialism in the region.

Some modern observers have argued that if World War I had not lessened American enthusiasm for international activity these interventions might have led to the formation of an expanded U.S. colonial empire, with Central American states either annexed into statehood like Hawaii or becoming American territories, like the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. However, this view is heavily disputed, especially as, after a decrease in activity during and after World War I, the U.S. government intervened again in the 1920s while again stating that no colonial ambitions were held. The Banana Wars ended with the 1933 Good Neighbor Policy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt; no official American colonies had been created.

The countries involved in the Banana Wars include:

Cuba – Sometimes not counted among the banana wars, as the Platt Amendment granted the United States the right to militarily intervene on any occasion in which Cuba's independence was threatened

Though many other countries in the region may have been influenced or dominated by American banana or other companies, there is no history of U.S. military intervention during this period in those countries.

The Great Depression made overseas military expeditions too costly for the U.S. In January 1931, Henry Stimson, then Secretary of State, announced that all U.S. soldiers in Nicaragua would be withdrawn following the 1932 election in the country. The Good Neighbor policy was the foreign policy of newly elected American president Franklin Roosevelt toward the countries of Latin America. The United States wished to improve relations with its Latin American neighbors in a time of increasing international conflict. Giving up unpopular military intervention, the United States implemented its policy of Pan-Americanism to maintain its influence. This policy supported strong domestic leaders, the training of national guards, economic and cultural penetration, Export-Import Bank loans, financial supervision, and political subversion. The Good Neighbor Policy meant that the United States would keep its eye on Latin America in a more peaceful manner. On March 4, 1933, Roosevelt stated during his inaugural address that: "In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others."[34] This position was affirmed by Cordell Hull, Roosevelt's Secretary of State, at a conference of American states in Montevideo in December 1933. Hull endorsed the resolution, "No country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another."[35] In December 1933 Roosevelt stated, "The definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention."[36]

President Roosevelt's policy after 1939 was to pay special attention to Latin America, to fend off German influence, to build a united front on behalf of the war effort, and then to win support for the United Nations. Only Brazil contributed significant numbers of men to fight.[37] British intelligence knew about Roosevelt's fears and exploited them in 1941 by producing a fake map that indicated German plans for taking over South America.[38] Roosevelt's appointment of young Nelson Rockefeller to head the new, well-funded Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs provided energetic leadership; in practice Rockefeller reported to Roosevelt and largely ignored the State Department.[39] Anti-fascist propaganda was a major project across Latin America, and was run by Rockefeller's office. It spent millions on radio broadcasts and motion pictures, hoping to reach a large audience. Madison Avenue techniques generated a push back in Mexico, especially, where well-informed locals resisted heavy-handed American influence.[40] Nevertheless, Mexico was a valuable ally in the war. A deal was reached whereby 250,000 Mexican citizens living in the United States served in the American forces; over 1000 were killed in combat.[41] In addition to propaganda, large sums were allocated for economic support and development. On the whole the Roosevelt policy was a political success, except in Argentina, which tolerated German influence, and refused to follow Washington's lead until the war was practically over.[42][43]

After the United States declared war on Germany in December 1941, the Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted a list of Germans in fifteen Latin American countries it suspected of subversive activities and demanded their eviction to the U.S. for detention. In response, several countries expelled a total of 4,058 Germans to the U.S. Some 10% to 15% of them were Nazi party members, including some dozen recruiters for the Nazis' overseas arm and eight people suspected of espionage. Also among them were 81 Jewish Germans who had only recently fled persecution in Nazi Germany. The bulk were ordinary Germans who were residents in the Latin American states for years or decades. Some were expelled because corrupt Latin American officials took the opportunity to seize their property or ordinary Latin Americans were after the financial reward that U.S. intelligence paid informants. Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico did not participate in the U.S. expulsion program.[44]

Most Latin Americans have seen their neighbor to the north (the United States) growing richer; they have seen the elite elements in their own societies growing richer – but the man in the street or on the land in Latin America today still lives the hand-to-mouth existence of his great, great grandfather... They are less and less happy with situations in which, to cite one example, 40 percent of the land is owned by 1 percent of the people, and in which, typically, a very thin upper crust lives in grandeur while most others live in squalor.

Officially started in 1947 with the Truman doctrine theorizing the "containment" policy, the Cold War had important consequences in Latin America. Latin America was considered by the United States to be a full part of the Western Bloc, called "free world", in contrast with the Eastern Bloc, a division born with the end of World War II and the Yalta Conference held in February 1945. It "must be the policy of the United States", Truman declared, "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures." Truman rallied to spend $400 million to intervene in the Greek civil war, while the CIA (created by the National Security Act of 1947) intervention in Greece was its first act in its infancy. By aiding Greece, Truman set a precedent for U.S. aid to regimes, no matter how repressive and corrupt, that requested help to fight communists.[46] Washington began to sign a series of defense treaties with countries all over the world, including the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, which created NATO, and the ANZUS in 1951 with Australia and New Zealand. Moscow response to NATO and to the Marshall Plan in Europe included the creation of the COMECON economic treaty and the Warsaw Pact defense alliance, gathering Eastern Europe countries which had fallen under its sphere of influence. After the Berlin Blockade by the Soviet Union, the Korean War (1950–53) was one of the first conflicts of the Cold War, while the US succeeded France in the counter-revolutionary war against Viet-minh in Indochina.

In Latin America itself, the US defense treaty was the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (aka Rio Treaty or TIAR) of 1947, known as the "hemispheric defense" treaty. It was the formalization of the Act of Chapultepec, adopted at the Inter-American Conference on the Problems of War and Peace in 1945 in Mexico City. The U.S. had maintained a hemispheric defense policy under the Monroe Doctrine and, during the 1930s, had been alarmed by Axis overtures toward military cooperation with Latin American governments, in particular apparent strategic threats against the Panama Canal. During the war, Washington had been able to secure Allied support from all individual governments except Uruguay, which remained neutral, and wished to make those commitments permanent. With the exceptions of Trinidad and Tobago (1967), Belize (1981) and the Bahamas (1982), no countries that became independent after 1947 have joined the treaty.

The slogan 'we will not allow another Cuba' hides the possibility of perpetrating aggressions without fear of reprisal, such as the one carried out against the Dominican Republic or before that the massacre in Panama – and the clear warning stating that Yankee troops are ready to intervene anywhere in America where the ruling regime may be altered, thus endangering their interests.

Fidel Castro during a visit to Washington, D.C., shortly after the Cuban Revolution in 1959

The 1959 Cuban Revolution, headed by Fidel Castro, was one of the first defeats of the US foreign policy in Latin America. In 1961, Cuba became a member of the newly created Non-Aligned Movement, which succeeded the 1955 Bandung Conference. After the implementation of several economic reforms, including complete nationalizations by Cuba's government, US trade restrictions on Cuba increased. The U.S. halted Cuban sugar imports, on which Cuba's economy depended the most. Additionally, the U.S. refused to supply its former trading partner with much needed oil, creating a devastating effect on the island's economy. In March 1960, tensions increased when the freighter La Coubre exploded in Havana harbor, killing over 75 people. Fidel Castro blamed the United States and compared the incident to the 1898 sinking of the USS Maine, which had precipitated the Spanish–American War; he could provide no evidence for his accusation.[48] That same month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the CIA to organize, train and equip Cuban refugees as a guerrilla force to overthrow Castro, which would lead to the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion authorized by president John F. Kennedy.[49][50]

We (the U.S.) have not only supported a dictatorship in Cuba – we have propped up dictators in Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic. We not only ignored poverty and distress in Cuba – we have failed in the past eight years to relieve poverty and distress throughout the hemisphere.– President John F. Kennedy, October 6, 1960[51]

Every time the Cuban government nationalized US properties, the US government took countermeasures, resulting in the prohibition of all exports to Cuba on October 19, 1960. Consequently, Cuba began to consolidate trade relations with the Soviet Union, leading the US to break off all remaining official diplomatic relations. Later that year, U.S. diplomats Edwin L. Sweet and Wiliam G. Friedman were arrested and expelled from the island, having been charged with "encouraging terrorist acts, granting asylum, financing subversive publications and smuggling weapons". The U.S. began the formulation of new plans aimed at destabilizing the Cuban government, collectively known as "The Cuban Project" (aka Operation Mongoose). This was to be a co-ordinated program of political, psychological and military sabotage, involving intelligence operations as well as assassination attempts on key political leaders. The Cuban project also proposed false flag attacks, known as Operation Northwoods. A U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee report later confirmed over eight attempted plots to kill Castro between 1960 and 1965, as well as additional plans against other Cuban leaders.[52]

After numerous attacks, the MIR and Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) members of Congress were finally arrested. It became clear that Fidel Castro had been arming the rebels, so Venezuela protested to the Organization of American States (OAS). At the same time, the U.S. suspended economic and/or broke off diplomatic relations with several dictatorships between 1961 and JFK's assassination in 1963, including Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru. However, these suspensions were imposed only temporarily, for periods of only three weeks to six months. However, the US finally decided it best to train Latin American militaries in counter-insurgency tactics at the School of the Americas. In effect, the Alliance for Progress included U.S. programs of military and police assistance to counter Communism, including Plan LAZO in Colombia from 1959 to 1964.

The nuclear arms race brought the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy responded to the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba with a naval blockade—a show of force that brought the world close to nuclear war.[53] The Cuban Missile Crisis showed that neither superpower was ready to use nuclear weapons for fear of the other's retaliation, and thus of mutually assured destruction. The aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis led to the first efforts toward nuclear disarmament and improving relations. (Palmowski)

By 1964, under President Lyndon Johnson, the program to discriminate against dictatorial regimes ceased. In March 1964, the U.S. supported a military coup in Brazil, overthrowing left-wing president, João Goulart, and was prepared to help if called upon under Operation Brother Sam.[54] In 1965, the U.S. dispatched 24,000 soldiers to the Dominican Republic to prevent a possible left-wing takeover under Operation Power Pack. Earlier the OAS issued a resolution calling the combatants to end all hostilities. On May 5, the OAS Peace Committee arrived in Santo Domingo and a second definite cease fire agreement was signed, ending the main phase of the civil war. Under the Act of Santo Domingo, OAS was tasked with overseeing the implementation of the peace deal as well as distributing food and medication through the capital. The treaties failed to fully prevent violations such as small scale firefights and sniper fire. A day later, OAS members established the Inter-American Peace Force (IAPF) with the goal of serving as a peacekeeping formation in the Dominican Republic. IAPF consisted of 1,748 Brazilian, Paraguayan, Nicaraguan, Costa Rican, Salvadoran and Honduran troops and was headed by Brazilian general Hugo Panasco Alvim, with Bruce Palmer serving as his deputy commander.[55]

On May 26, U.S. forces began gradually withdrawing from the island. The first post war elections were held on July 1, 1966, pitting Reformist Party candidate, Joaquín Balaguer, against former president Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño. Balaguer emerged victorious in the elections, after building his campaign on promises of reconciliation. On September 21, 1966, the last OAS peacekeepers withdrew from the island, ending the foreign intervention in the conflict.

Through the Office of Public Safety, an organization dependent of the USAID and close to the CIA, the US assisted Latin American security forces, training them in interrogation methods, riot control, and sending them materiel. Dan Mitrione in Uruguay and Luis Posada Carriles in Venezuela became infamous for their systematic use of torture.

With the election of President Jimmy Carter in 1977, the US moderated for a short time its support to authoritarian regimes in Latin America. It was during that year that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, an agency of the OAS, was created. At the same time, voices in the US[who?] began to denounce Pinochet's violation of human rights, in particular after the 1976 assassination of former Chilean minister Orlando Letelier in Washington D.C.

The inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981 meant a renewed support for right-wing authoritarian regimes in Latin America. In the 1980s, the situation progressively evolved in the world as in South America, despite a renewal of the Cold War from 1979 to 1985, the year during which Mikhail Gorbachev replaced Konstantin Chernenko as leader of the USSR, and began to implement the glasnost and the perestroika democratic-inspired reforms. South America saw various states returning progressively to democracy. This democratization of South America found a symbol in the OAS' adoption of Resolution 1080 in 1991, which requires the Secretary General to convene the Permanent Council within ten days of a coup d'état in any member country. However, at the same time, Washington started to aggressively pursue the "War on Drugs", which included the invasion of Panama in 1989 to overthrow Manuel Noriega, who had been a long-time ally of the US and had even worked for the CIA before his reign as leader of the country. The "War on Drugs" was later expanded through Plan Colombia in the late 1990s and the Mérida Initiative in Mexico and Central America.

Due to the covert U.S. support allegedly given, without mediation, to the United Kingdom during the Malvinas/Falklands war in 1982, a deep weakening of hemispheric relations occurred. In Brazil, this was taken by the academic establishment as a clear example of how the Hemispheric relations worked, leading to new perspectives in matters of foreign policy and international relations by the Brazilian establishment. Some of these academics, in fact, argue that this definitively turned the TIAR into a dead letter,[57] and the Mexican government withdrew from the treaty in 2001 citing the Falklands example, though notably Argentina itself is still a TIAR member.

On one side, you have a number of administrations that are committed to moderate economic reform. On the other, you've had something of a backlash against the Washington Consensus [a set of liberal economic policies that Washington-based institutions urged Latin American countries to follow, including privatization, trade liberalization and fiscal discipline] and some emergence of populist leaders[70]

La Paz has found itself at the economic and political nexus of the pink tide, linked by ideology to Caracas, but economically bound to Brasilia and Buenos Aires. One thing that Morales knew, however, was that he couldn't repudiate his campaign pledges to the electorate or deprive Bolivia of the revenue that is so urgently needed.[67]

One sign of the US setback in the region has been the OEA 2005 Secretary General election. For the first time in the OEA's history, Washington's candidate was refused by the majority of countries, after two stalemates between José Miguel Insulza, member of the Socialist Party of Chile and former Interior Minister of the latter country, and Luis Ernesto Derbez, member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and former Foreign Minister of Mexico. Derbez was explicitly supported by the US, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Bolivia (then presided by Carlos Mesa), Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, while Chilean minister José Insulza was supported by all the Southern Cone countries, as well as Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. José Insulza was finally elected at the third turn, and took office on 26 May 2005

Reformist Luis Guillermo Solís of the Citizens Action Party was elected in 2014. Solís belongs to a moderate Progressive party and had no link with the far-left, and also kept a friendly relationship with the USA, nevertheless his victory was also attributed to a general contempt toward Washington-endorsed neoliberal policies (Solís, for example, was a staunch opponent of CAFTA). During his presidency Solís established close relationships with some Progressive governments of South America, to the point of leaving the United Nation's chambers during Michel Temer's speech in protest for Rousseff's impeachment in September 2016.[72] On the other hand, the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry has condemned Venezuela's government accusing it of being authoritarian and anti-democratic.[73][74][75]

Apart from binational free-trade agreements, the US has also signed a number of bilateral investment treaties (BIT) with Latin American countries, establishing the conditions of foreign direct investment. These treaties include "fair and equitable treatment", protection from expropriation, free transfer of means and full protection and security. Critics point out that US negotiators can control the pace, content and direction of bilateral negotiations with individual countries more easily than they can with larger negotiating frameworks.[81]

In case of a disagreement between a multinational firm and a state over some kind of investment made in a Latin American country, the firm may depose a lawsuit before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (International Center for the Resolution of Investment Disputes), which is an international court depending on the World Bank. Such a lawsuit was deposed by the US-based multinational firm Bechtel following its expulsion from Bolivia during the Cochabamba protests of 2000. Local population had demonstrated against the privatization of the water company, requested by the World Bank, after poor management of the water by Bechtel. Thereafter, Bechtel requested $50 millions from the Bolivian state in reparation. However, the firm finally decided to drop the case in 2006 after an international protest campaign.[82]

Such BIT were passed between the US and numerous countries (the given date is not of signature but of entrance in force of the treaty): Argentina (1994), Bolivia (2001), Ecuador (1997), Grenada (1989), Honduras (2001), Jamaica (1997), Panama (1991, amended in 2001), Trinidad and Tobago (1996). Others where signed but not ratified: El Salvador (1999), Haiti (1983 – one of the earliest, preceded by Panama), Nicaragua (1995).

In reply to the ALCA, Chavez initiated the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia signed the TCP (or People's Trade Agreement), while Venezuela, a main productor of natural gas and of petroleum (it is member of the OPEC) has signed treaties with Nicaragua, where Daniel Ortega, former leader of the Sandinistas, was elected in 2006 – Ortega, however, cut down his anti-imperialist and socialist discourse, and is hotly controversial; both on the right-wing and on the left-wing. Chávez also implemented the Petrocaribe alliance, signed by 12 of the 15 members of the Caribbean Community in 2005. When Hurricane Katrina ravaged Florida and Louisiana, Chávez, who called the "Yanqui Empire" a "paper tiger", even ironically proposed to provide "oil-for-the-poor" to the US after Hurricane Katrina the same year, through Citgo, a subsidiary of PDVSA the state-owned Venezuelan petroleum company, which has 14,000 gas stations and owns eight oil refineries in the US.[83][84]

In September 2005, it was revealed that Triple Canopy, Inc., a private military company present in Iraq, was training Latin American mercenaries in Lepaterique in Honduras.[85] Lepaterique was a former training base for the Contras. 105 Chilean mercenaries were deported from the country. According to La Tribuna Honduran newspaper, in one day in November, Your Solutions shipped 108 Hondurans, 88 Chileans and 16 Nicaraguans to Iraq.[86] Approximatively 700 Peruvians, 250 Chileans and 320 Hondurans work in Baghdad's Green Zone for Triple Canopy, paid half price in comparison to North-American employees. The news also attracted attention in Chile, when it became known that retired military Marina Óscar Aspe worked for Triple Canopy. The latter had taken part to the assassination of Marcelo Barrios Andrade, a 21-year-old member of the FPMR, who is on the list of victims of the Rettig Report – while Marina Óscar Aspe is on the list of the 2001 Comisión Ética contra la Tortura (2001 Ethical Commission Against Torture). Triple Canopy also has a subsidiary in Peru.[85]

In July 2007, Salvadoran president Antonio Saca reduced the number of deployed troops in Iraq from 380, to 280 soldiers. Four Salvadoran soldiers died in different situations since deployment in 2003, but on the bright side, more than 200 projects aimed to rebuild Iraq were completed.[87]

The struggle for natural resources and the US defense of its commercial interests has not ceased since the zenith period of the banana republics supported by the US. The general context has changed significantly and each country's approach has evolved accordingly. Thus, the Bolivian Gas War in 2003–04 was sparked after projects by the Pacific LNG consortium to export natural gas – Bolivia possessing the second largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela – to California (Baja California and US California) via Chile, resented in Bolivia since the War of the Pacific (1879–1884) which deprived it of an access to the Pacific Ocean. The ALCA was also opposed during the demonstrations, headed by the Bolivian Workers' Center and Felipe Quispe's Indigenous Pachakuti Movement (MIP).

A proof of the new geopolitical context can be seen in Evo Morales' announcement, in concordance with his electoral promises, of the nationalization of gas reserves, the second highest in South America after Venezuela. First of all, he carefully warned that they would not take the form of expropriations or confiscations, maybe fearing a violent response. The nationalizations, which, according to Vice President Álvaro García, are supposed to make the government's energy-related revenue jump to $780 million in the following year, expanding nearly sixfold from 2002,[89] led to criticisms from Brazil, which Petrobras company is one of the largest foreign investors in Bolivia, controlling 14 percent of the country's gas reserves.[90] Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America and was heavily affected by protests in the 1980s–90s, largely due to the shock therapy enforced by previous governments,[67] and also by resentment concerning the coca eradication program – coca is a traditional plant for the Native Quechua and Aymara people, who use it for therapeutical (against altitude sickness) and cultural purposes. Thus, Brazil's Energy Minister, Silas Rondeau, reacted to Morales' announcement by condemning the move as "unfriendly."[91] According to Reuters, "Bolivia's actions echo what Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, possibly Morales' biggest ally, did in the world's fifth-largest oil exporter with forced contract migrations and retroactive tax hikes – conditions that major oil companies largely agreed to accept." The Bolivian gas company YPFB, privatized by former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada, was to pay foreign companies for their services, offering about 50 percent of the value of production, although the decree indicated that companies exploiting the country's two largest gas fields would get just 18 percent. After initially hostile reactions, Repsol "expressed its willingness to cooperate with the Bolivian government," while Petrobras retreated its call to cancel new investment in Bolivia.[67] However, still according to Larry Birns, "The nationalization's high media profile could force the [US] State Department to take a tough approach to the region, even to the point of mobilizing the CIA and the U.S. military, but it is more likely to work its way by undermining the all-important chink in the armor – the Latin American armed forces."[67]

There are two broad schools of thought on Latin America–United States relations:[92]

The "establishment" school which sees US policy towards Latin America as an attempt to exclude extraterritorial rivals from the hemisphere as a way to defend the United States. This grouping of scholars generally sees the US presence in Latin America as beneficial for the region, as it has made warfare rare, led to the creation of multilateral institutions in the region and promoted democracy.

The "revisionist synthesis" school of scholarship that emerged during the 1980s and 1990s and saw US policy towards Latin America as imperial. This grouping of scholars emphasizes the role of US business and government elites in shaping a foreign policy to economically dominate Latin America.

^Pérez 1998, p. 89 states: "In the larger view, the Cuban insurrection had already brought the Spanish army to the brink of defeat. During three years of relentless war, the Cubans had destroyed railroad lines, bridges, and roads and paralyzed telegraph communications, making it all but impossible for the Spanish army to move across the island and between provinces. [The] Cubans had, moreover, inflicted countless thousands of casualties on Spanish soldiers and effectively driven Spanish units into beleaguered defensive concentrations in the cities, there to suffer the further debilitating effects of illness and hunger."

^Shoultz, Lars. Beneath the United States pg. 166–169. The U.S. violated Colombian sovereignty in that they supported the secession of Panama through the use of the U.S. navy. Senator Edward Carmack was quoted as saying, "There never was any real insurrection in Panama. To all intents and purposes [sic] there was but one man in that insurrection, and that man was the President of the United States."

Dunne, Michael. "Kennedy's Alliance for Progress: countering revolution in Latin America. Part I: From the White House to the Charter of Punta del Este." International Affairs 89.6 (2013): 1389–1409. abstract

Gilderhus, Mark T. The Second Century: U.S.-Latin American Relations Since 1889 (1999)

Grenville, John A. S. and George Berkeley Young. Politics, Strategy, and American Diplomacy: Studies in Foreign Policy, 1873–1917 (1966) pp 74–178, deals with Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, and the crises in Hawaii, Venezuela, and Cuba.